DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Invasion phylogeography of Borrelia burgdorferi, a tick-borne pathogen

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Tick-borne diseases pose a significant and growing global health burden due to the expanding range of tick vectors, reservoir hosts, and pathogens, as well as a suite of other environmental pressures. Lyme disease is the most prevalent tick-borne disease in the US and the vast majority of cases occur in the Northeast. Over the past forty years, it has rapidly spread from southern New England through Maine as well as through the Upper Midwest. Despite its epidemiological importance, the source and trajectory of the ongoing invasion remains poorly described. This project harnesses the tools of next generation sequencing to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the Lyme disease bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi. Surveying the genomic diversity of the pathogen will allow us to infer the probable origin of invasion and pathways of spread and will inform a better understanding of the environmental or ecological factors driving the emergence. Resolving the invasion history of B. burgdorferi will inform models of continued spatial spread and targeted control measures for this important human pathogen. Further, this project will support the research of a team of three female scientists and the training of at least four undergraduate assistants, including women and minorities, and several high school students in field ecology, epidemiology, and evolutionary genomics techniques.